Half Moon Street

by Anne Perry

  Pitt saw the photographers first, balancing their tripods carefully on the uneven surfaces of the earth, angling cameras up to tangled vines or intricate patterns of branches, trying to catch the light on the surface of a leaf. He knew they would be furious to be interrupted. He also knew that unless he forced his way into their attention he would stand waiting until the light faded at the end of the day.

  He approached a fair-haired young man with a keen face, at that moment shading his eyes as he stared at the crown of a soaring palm.

  Pitt craned his neck upward and saw a tracery of vines across the roof, erratic circles and curves against the geometry of the paned glass. It was a pity to interrupt, but necessary. Beauty and imagination would have to wait.

  “Excuse me!”

  The young man waved his other hand to ward off the disturbance.

  “Later, sir, you may have my entire attention. Come back in half an hour, if you would be so good.”

  “I’m sorry, I have not half an hour to spare,” Pitt apologized. He meant it. “I am Superintendent Pitt of the Bow Street station, and I am investigating the murder of a photographer.”

  That captured the young man’s concentration. He abandoned the palm and stared at Pitt with wide blue eyes. “One of our club? Murdered? My God . . . who?”

  “Not one of your club, Mr. . . .”

  “McKellar, David McKellar. You said a photographer?”

  “Delbert Cathcart.”

  “Oh!” He seemed vaguely relieved. “Oh yes, of course. I read about that. Robbed and thrown into the river, so it seems. I’m terribly sorry. He was brilliant.” He colored faintly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound callous. Of course a death is terrible, whoever’s it is. From his point of view, I daresay his talent is irrelevant. But I know nothing about it. What could I tell you?”

  “On the morning Mr. Cathcart was killed there was a quarrel between Orlando Antrim, the actor, and Mr. Henri Bonnard of the French Embassy,” Pitt explained.

  McKellar looked startled.

  “Do you know anything about it?” Pitt pressed. “It was apparently on the subject of photographs.”

  “Was it?” McKellar seemed perplexed but not entirely at a loss, as he might have been were the subject to make no sense to him at all.

  “Do people quarrel over photographs?” Pitt asked.

  “Well . . . I suppose so. What has that to do with poor Cathcart?”

  “Do you sell your pictures?” Tellman said suddenly. “I mean, is there money in it?” He glanced around at the cameras and their tripods.

  McKellar colored a little more deeply. “Well, sometimes. It—it helps funds, you know. Costs a bit, all this stuff. Not that . . .” He trailed off and stopped, standing a little uncomfortably.

  Pitt waited.

  “I mean . . .” McKellar fidgeted. “Look, I think I may be speaking a trifle out of turn, you know? I’ve just sold the odd picture here and there, that’s all.”

  “Of vines and leaves?” Tellman said incredulously. “People pay for that?”

  McKellar avoided his eyes. “No . . . no, I shouldn’t think so. Mostly a nice picture of a young lady, perhaps a few flowers . . . more . . . more personal, more charm, that sort of thing.”

  “A young lady with perhaps a few flowers,” Pitt repeated, raising his eyebrows a little. “And a gown, or not?”

  McKellar looked wretched. “Well, I daresay. Sometimes . . . not.” He met Pitt’s eyes and this time he was quite vehement. “Just a bit— artistic. Not vulgar!”

  Pitt smiled. He carefully avoided Tellman’s glance. “I see. And these sales supplement your funds for the expense of films and so on?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do the young ladies in question receive part of this profit?”

  “They get copies of . . . of one or two of the pictures.”

  “And are they aware that the rest are sold—to be bought, I presume, by the general public?” Pitt enquired.

  McKellar was silent for a moment. “I . . . I think so,” he said unhappily. “I mean . . . the reason’s clear, isn’t it?”

  “Perfectly,” Pitt agreed. “You wish to make some money in order to finance your hobby.” His voice was colder than he had meant it to be.

  McKellar flushed bright pink.

  “And where are these photographs sold?” Pitt pressed. “Sergeant Tellman will take down the names and addresses of all the dealers you have business with.”

  “Well . . . I . . .”

  “If you can’t remember them then we’ll accompany you to wherever you have the information, and take it from there.”

  McKellar gave up. He swallowed convulsively. “It’s all quite innocent, you know!” he protested. “Just . . . just pictures!”

  In the afternoon Pitt and Tellman began visiting the dealers in postcards.

  To begin with, all they saw were pretty pictures of a variety of young women in fairly conventional poses, their gentle faces looking out at the camera, some awkwardly self-conscious, others boldly, with a smile, even a challenge. There was nothing to be offended by, except the possibility that they had been denied a share of the profits. But then, considering the cost of cameras, film, development and so on, the profits were probably extremely small. The postcards themselves sold for a few pence, and they were of a good quality. The greatest gain from them was the pleasure in the creation and the possession.

  “Is that all you have?” Pitt asked, without hope of learning anything further that was of value; it was a matter of habit. They were in a small tobacconist and bookseller’s in Half Moon Street, just off Piccadilly, its shelves crowded, wooden floor creaking at every step. The smells of leather and snuff filled the air.

  “Well . . .” the dealer said dubiously. “More the same, others much like these. That’s all.”

  There was something in the way he said it, a directness that caught Pitt’s attention. He was not certain it was a lie, but he felt it was.

  “I’ll see them,” he said firmly.

  Several dozen more cards were produced, and he and Tellman went through them fairly rapidly. They were of a wide variety, some quiet country scenes with pretty girls in the foreground, some almost domestic, some artificial and carefully posed. Many had a kind of innocence about them and were obviously amateur. Pitt recognized the round form and the type of foliage and patterns of light and shade he had seen the young men of the camera club study. He thought he even recognized parts of Hampstead Heath.

  There were others more skilled, with subtler uses of light and shade, effects less obviously contrived. These were taken by enthusiasts with more practice and considerably more ability.

  “I like the round ones,” Tellman observed, fingering through the cards. “I mean I like the shape of the picture. But it does waste space, and on the whole I’d say the square ones were better, in a way. Sort of different, not like the girl you might meet in the street, more like . . . I don’t know—”

  “Square ones?” Pitt interrupted.

  “Yes, here. There’s half a dozen or so.” Tellman passed over four of them.

  Pitt looked. The first was well done but ordinary enough. The second was very good indeed. The girl had dark, curly hair blowing untidily around her face and she was laughing. In the background was a distant scene of the river, with light on the water and figures out of focus, no more than suggestions. She looked happy, and as if she was ready for anything that might be fun, the sort of girl most men would love to spend a day with, or longer. The photographer had caught her at the perfect moment.

  The next was equally good but extremely different. This girl was fair, almost ethereal. She gazed away from the camera; the light made an aureole of her hair, and her pale shoulders gleamed like satin where her gown had slipped a little low. It was a brilliant mixture of innocence and eroticism. She was leaning a little on a pedestal, either of stone or plaster, and there was a vine growing around it.

  It stirred a memory in Pitt, but he could
not place it.

  The last picture was of a very formal beauty reclining on a chaise longue. He had seen a photograph of Lillie Langtry in a similar pose. Only this girl was looking directly at the camera and there was a slight smile on her lips, as if she was aware of a hidden irony. The longer he looked at it the more attractive it became, because of the intelligence in her face.

  Then he remembered where he had seen the pillars in the photograph before, because the chaise longue came from the same place. They belonged to Delbert Cathcart; Pitt had seen them in his studio.

  “These are very good,” he said thoughtfully.

  “You like them?” the dealer asked with interest, scenting a possible sale. “I’ll make you a fair price.”

  “Did you buy them legitimately?” Pitt said, frowning a little.

  The man was indignant. “Of course I did! Do all my business fair and legal.”

  “Good. Then you can tell me where you bought these. Was it from Miss Monderell?”

  “Never ’eard of ’er. Bought ’em from the artist ’isself.”

  “Did you? That would be Mr. Delbert Cathcart.”

  “Well . . .” He regarded Pitt nervously.

  Pitt smiled. “Actually, it is Mr. Cathcart’s murder I am investigating.”

  The man blanched visibly and swallowed. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Oh? Yeah?”

  Pitt continued to smile. “I’m sure you would be eager to help as much as possible, Mr. Unsworth. I think if you have these pictures of Mr. Cathcart’s then you may have others as well, worth more money, perhaps. And before you make an error by denying that, I must advise you that I can very easily remain here to talk to you about the matter while Sergeant Tellman goes to fetch a warrant to search your premises. Or I could call the local constable to wait, and Sergeant Tellman and I could both go—”

  “No . . . no!” The thought of a constable in uniform was enough to settle Unsworth’s mind completely. It would be very bad for custom, particularly among those gentlemen who had rather private tastes. “I’ll show you the rest meself. ’Course I will. A bit o’ color in life is one thing, but I draw the line at murder. That’s quite diff ’rent—quite diff ’rent. Come wi’ me, gents. This way!” He led the way up rickety, twisting stairs.

  The pictures that he had in the room above were a good deal more explicit than those in the front of the shop. Many women had abandoned gowns altogether and were posed with little more than a few wisps of fabric, a feathered fan or a posy of flowers. They were handsome women in early or middle youth, with firm, high breasts and rich thighs. Some of the poses were more erotic than others.

  “All quite harmless, really,” Unsworth said, watching Pitt guardedly.

  “Yes, they are,” Pitt agreed, conscious of Tellman at his elbow exuding disapproval. In his opinion women who sold themselves for this kind of picture were of the same general class as those who sold themselves in prostitution, only these girls were young and well fed and far from any outward sign of poverty or despair.

  Unsworth relaxed. “Y’see?”

  Pitt looked at them more carefully. He saw half a dozen or so which could have been Cathcart’s. The quality was there, the subtlety of light and shade, the more delicate suggestion of something beyond the mere flesh. One woman had a bunch of lilies in her hands half obscuring her breasts. It was a highly evocative mixture of purity and license. Another woman with rich dark hair lay sprawled on a Turkish carpet, a brass hookah behind her, as if she was about to partake of the smoke from some pungent herb. The longer he looked at it, the more certain Pitt became that it was Cathcart’s work. The symbolism was there, the skill of suggestion, as well as the practiced use of the camera itself.

  But none of these, good as they were, were worth the price of Lily Monderell’s teapot, let alone the watercolor.

  “Yes, I see,” he said aloud. “Now how about the others, the expensive ones? Do you bring them to me, or do I have to look for them myself ?”

  Unsworth hesitated, clearly torn as to how much he could still hope to get away with.

  Pitt turned to Tellman. “Sergeant, go and see if you can find—”

  “All right!” Unsworth said loudly, his face dark, his voice edged with anger. “I’ll show ’em to yer meself ! Yer an ’ard man! Wot’s the ’arm in a few pictures? Nobody’s ’urt. Nobody’s in it as doesn’t wanter be. It ain’t real!”

  “The pictures, Mr. Unsworth,” Pitt said grimly. He would not argue realities of the mind with him.

  Ungraciously Unsworth produced the pictures, slamming them down on the table in front of Pitt, then stood back, his arms folded.

  These were different. Innocence was gone completely. Pitt heard Tellman’s intake of breath between his teeth and did not need to turn sideways to know the expression on his face, the revulsion, the hurt inside. Some of them still possessed an art, albeit a twisted one. In the first four the women were leering, their bodies in attitudes of half ecstasy already, but vulgar, totally physical. There was no suggestion of tenderness, only appetite.

  He flipped through them quickly. He would rather not have looked at all. Each one of these women had not so long ago been a child, searching for love, not lust. They may have been used rather than cared for, they may have been lonely or frightened or bored, but they had still been outside the adult world of selfish, physical use of one person by another merely to relieve a hunger.

  Except, of course, for those who long knew abuse from the very people who were supposed to protect them. And looking at some of these sad, worldly eyes, that might have described a few of them. There was already a self-disgust in some that was harsher than any of the physical degradations.

  Others were worse again, mimicking pain inflicted for pleasure, with the implication that it held some kind of secret joy reached only by breaching all the barriers. Some were obscene, some blasphemous. Many women were dressed in mockery of those in holy orders, nuns with skirts torn open, hurled to the ground, or over the banisters of stairs, as if rape was on a level with martyrdom and a kind of religious ecstasy was achieved by submission to violence.

  Pitt felt a sickness churn in his stomach. The moment he looked he wished he had not seen them. How did one erase from the mind such images? He would not want it to, but the next time he saw a nun this would return to him, and he would be unable to meet her eyes in case she saw what was in his mind. Something was already soiled for him.

  And there were others equally ugly, some involving men also, and children. Satanic rituals were suggested with emblems of death, sacrifice. In two or three the shadow of a goat’s head, goblets of blood and wine, light shining on the blade of a knife.

  Tellman gave a little grunt. It was a short sound, barely audible, but Pitt heard the distress in it as if it had been a scream. He wished there was a way he could excuse them both, but there was not.

  Among the pictures he recognized one beautiful face, not a young one, not lovely with the untouched flower of youth, but older, the beauty that of the clean sweep of throat and cheek, the perfect balance of bone delicate yet strong, the halo of fair hair. It was Cecily Antrim, dressed as a nun, her head back, her arms tied by the wrists to a wheel, her body bent over it. A man knelt in front of her, his face reflecting ecstasy. It was a curious picture, half pornographic, half blasphemous, as if the two, in the figure of the priest, came together. It was a powerful and profoundly disturbing image, far less easy to forget than those which were simply erotic. This raised questions in the mind as to the nature of religious practice and the honesty or dishonesty of what purported to be service of God.

  Pitt looked at a few more, another dozen or so. He was almost at the bottom of the pile when he saw it. He knew from the stifled gasp beside him that Tellman had seen it at the same instant.

  It was Cecily Antrim again, in a green velvet gown, lying on her back in a punt, surrounded by drifting flowers. Her knees were half drawn up. Her wrists and ankles were very obviously manacled to the boat. It
was the parody of Ophelia again, making it seem as if the imprisonment of the chains was what excited her, and the beginning of ecstasy was sharp and real in her face.

  “That’s disgusting!” Tellman said with a half sob. “How could any woman like that sort of thing?” He was glaring at Pitt. “What kind of idea does that give a man, eh?” He jabbed his thin finger at the shiny card. “A man looking for that is going to . . . to think . . . God knows! What’s he going to do, tell me that?”

  “I don’t know,” Pitt said quietly. “Maybe he’s going to think that’s the sort of thing women like. . . .”

  “Exactly!” Tellman’s voice cracked. “It’s revolting. It’s got to be stopped! What would happen if some young lad came in here?”

  “I don’t sell to young lads,” Unsworth cut in. “That sort of thing’s only for special customers, ones I know.”

  Pitt swung around on him, his eyes blazing, his voice raw. “And of course you know exactly what they do with them, don’t you! You know that every one of them is safely locked up by some sane and responsible person who treats his own wife like a precious friend, a lady, the mother of his children?” His voice was getting louder and he could not help it. “No one ever feeds his own dreams with them and then acts them out? No one ever sells them on to curious and ignorant boys who don’t even know what a naked woman’s body looks like and is aching to find out?”

  He remembered his own first awakenings of curiosity with surprising sharpness, and his ideas, his realizations of boundless, terrifying and wonderful possibilities.

  “Well . . .” Unsworth spluttered. “Well, you can’t hold me responsible for . . . I’m not my brother’s keeper!”

  “Just as well for him! The way you’re going about it he’s on that high road to that misery where he destroys everything he sees because he no longer believes in the possibility of worth. No, Mr. Unsworth, perhaps it is people like Sergeant Tellman and me who are his keeper, and we are now going to set about doing exactly that. You have a choice. You can either give us a list of your clients who buy these pictures—a complete list . . .”

  Unsworth shook his head violently.